Thanks to a $800,000 grant from the Knight Foundation, a new YouTube channel called “The I Files” will bring hard-hitting investigative journalism to the video aggregation site, adding to its professional content offerings.
YouTube is helping to launch the channel with the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR). The channel will feature videos from local citizen journalists and content partners, like The New York Times and Al Jazeera, who will share revenue with the Knight Foundation.
“The YouTube project is part of the Knight Foundation’s push for philanthropically-funded local investigative journalism, which has been hit especially hard by the financial downturn of traditional media,” reports TechCrunch.
“Last year, the FCC released a report on the decline of journalists covering local politics, and speculated about the possible corruption and negligence going unnoticed. YouTube could potentially offset this problem with user-generated content and by incentivizing the CIR’s national partners, such as the BBC, with some added viewership,” notes the post.
The extent of YouTube’s long term commitment is unknown, but according to a company spokesperson, “we highlight all kinds of news content from time to time on the site, and often highlight new channels — so you can expect that in the first few weeks after launch we’ll look for opportunities on YouTube and social media to tell more people about it.”
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